Launch commentary coverage and prelaunch media briefings will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

MAVEN is the second mission under NASA’s Mars Scout Program. It will take critical measurements of the martian upper atmosphere to help scientists understand climate change over the Red Planet’s history. MAVEN is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the martian upper atmosphere. It will orbit the planet in an elliptical orbit that allows it to pass through and sample the entire upper atmosphere on every orbit. The spacecraft will investigate how the loss of Mars’ atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface.